


Aftermath

by messyfeathers



Series: You Are Safe Now. [6]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Episode: e046 Parade Day, M/M, Strexcorp, the house that doesn't exist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 15:52:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1693937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messyfeathers/pseuds/messyfeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time doesn't work in Night Vale, but you can still run out of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

**_2:17_ **

He knows for a fact that it takes precisely two minutes and seventeen seconds for the yellow helicopters to travel from City Hall to the Desert Creek Housing Development. Time in the desert doesn't exist the way it should. Carlos has learned to never tell time by the position of the sun or the hands of the clocks on the walls. Instead he counts the seconds in heartbeats, an inexplicable rhythm learned over months of practice. It makes no sense how he knows how much time he has left to think, but he can feel it ticking away.  

**_2:13_ **

The parade had gone so wrong.  Things were supposed to be different.  Cecil had said so many times that this would work.  He believed in Tamika and they had both so blindly believed in their town.  No, not the town.  The town had quaked beneath their feet for weeks in protest, the sky had screamed objections with every corporate sunrise.  It was not Night Vale that failed the rebellion.  It was their friends and neighbors, schoolteachers and softball coaches.  They had believed in them, trusted them...and yet, Cecil had requested that Carlos investigate Desert Creek instead of joining the rally at Radon Canyon.  There had been a false sincerity to his smile when he promised he would be home in time to catch the weekly airing of  _Casablanca_  on PBS.  This had all been a possibility from the start, but Carlos hadn’t wanted to fully consider the consequences until now.  It's logical to assume that if he allows the emotions to rush through him all at once like a flood, maybe they will drain and leave him with enough clarity to focus on the facets of the situation under his control.

**_1:59_ **

Shaking hands clasp over his mouth to slow his breathing as he allows the fear to pervade his mind first.  He could have deviated from the plan, run toward the station when he heard the end of the show.  He could have at least tried to save Cecil from whatever fate he was about to face.  Gravity prevails over the scientist’s unsteady balance, and he slumps against the faded floral wallpaper in the foyer of the house that does not exist.  Now that the rebellion has been openly attempted and subsequently quelled, there is nothing keeping Cecil safe. His imagination holds nothing back as images blur together in his mind.  Capture, imprisonment, psychological terror, physical torture, death, permanent erasure.    

**_1:21_ **

The pain of loss strikes him like an electric shock.  He remains seated on the floor, mistrusting his ability to maintain composure otherwise.  In an attempt to belay the descent into blind panic, he separates the loss into organized lists.    
All the things he will miss most in the worst projected scenarios: Cecil’s arm around his waist, fingers twitching against his own in a deep sleep; whispered ‘ _I love you_ ’s in the morning; long conversations under skies filled with stars.    
Some things he already misses: double dates to the movies with Lucy and Hannah; Old Woman Josie’s tortilla soup left in a thermos on his doorstep; nights where the worst problem he faced was the undetectable shifting of tectonic plates; days long ago when even such benign enigmas were still impossibilities.    
Things StrexCorp has taken: safety, peace, Cecil, home.  

**_0:57_ **

Those aiding Tamika's rebellion aren't the only ones at risk anymore.  StrexCorp will withhold nothing now that their power is absolute.  Logically, it will only be a matter of time before Night Vale itself ceases to exist.  Carlos can envision the future in full detail: pointed black spires belching acrid smoke into the air, the sand thick and saturated with the blood of the noncompliant, the entire scene scorched beneath the blinding scrutiny of two artificial suns.  The only place that had ever felt like home to him would disappear forever.  There’s no more time for uncertainty - he has to follow the plan.  

**_0:39_ **

Carlos stares blankly at the phone in his hands, reading the words until his mind doesn’t recognize the letters.  

> _I’m sorry.  I love you.  Find Dana._

No emoji or  _x_ ’s and  _o_ ’s, no misspellings or emotional drabble.  The pain and blind panic threaten to resurface with the first two sentences, but Carlos forces them back into a corner of himself he can deal with later and chooses to focus on the last instruction.  He has rehearsed what little they know of her location countless times today.  If he can find Dana, then there will still be hope for the future, for Night Vale, for Cecil.  But the doors lead to other places as well, to angels and void and semi-existence - all far more tenuous ties to victory.  It’s a stretch and a gamble, one he wishes they didn’t have to take.  Cecil says that Carlos is brave, believes in him the same way he believed in his beloved town.  With steady determination, Carlos pushes himself to his feet.    
He will not let Cecil down.

**_0:22_ **

He can already hear the blades of the helicopters in the distance as he steps through the front door to the group of scientists waiting on the porch.  “It’s truly been an honor leading this team of such brilliant minds,” Carlos says.  They murmur similar sentiments in return as they shift nervously on the worn wooden veranda.  “Remember: knowledge is power.  Use it against them.”  He wants to share some grander soliloquy, some memorable Humphrey Bogart goodbye, but billowing clouds of dust are already forming at the end of the street.  He steps back through the doorway and removes the cinderblock holding the entrance ajar.

**_0:08_ **

There is a good chance that this will be the last time he ever sees the familiar street, the familiar faces, the familiar existence.  He knows that once the door closes time will fluctuate again; there will be a new rhythm to syncopate his steps.  The emotions run through him with one last violent breath, causing him to shudder as he closes his eyes and lets the door click softly shut.

**_0:01_ **

**Author's Note:**

> I know thus far all my chapters after upsetting episodes have been cute and fluffy, but I really wanted to write about Carlos in the house (and I _really_ want him to go find Dana!)


End file.
